C0P1 2_- 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

iiiiilllllltllllll! 



014 495 898 6 * 



F 614 
.F7 N4 
Copy 2 




FORT SMELLING, 



MINNESOTA, 



WHILE IN COMMAND OF COL. JOSIAH SNELLING, 
FIFTH INFANTRY. 



Bv REV. EDWARD D. NEILL, D. D. 



Kcpri.ite.l iVc.m Machine of Western Histokv 
1888. 



9 v., '01 



;s 

■ oil 






i 

el 



\ 



Fort Snelling, Minnesota 



WHILE IN COMMAND OF COLONEL JOSIAH SNELLING, 
FIFTH INFANTRY. 



BEFORE the organization of the 
territory of Minnesota in 1849, 
Fort Snelling was the sole nucleus 
of civilization in the Valley of the Upper 
Mississippi, beyond the mouth of the 
Wisconsin river. Here every scientific 
explorer, adventurous trader and Chris- 
tian missionary tarried a little while 
before entering a wilderness only occu- 
pied by warring savages. 

Beautifully located on a bold promon- 
tory at the junction of the Mississippi and 
Minnesota rivers, its picturesque ap- 
pearance has frequently been sketched 
by the artist. Among its commandants 
have been some of the most efficient 
officers of the United States army. 

The brave lieutenant, subsequently 
general, Zebulon M . Pike,*who was killed 



* Z. M. Pike was the son of Captain Pilie of the 
War of the Revolution. He was born in January, 
1779, at South Trenton, New Jersey. In March, 
1799, he was second Heutenant of Second infantry, 
and at this time first Heutenant of First regiment ; 
captain, August, 1809. Major Sixth infantry. May, 
1808 ; colonel Fourth, December, 1809 ; colonel 
Fifteenth, July, 1812; brigadier-general, March, 
1813. Killed April 27, 1813, at York, Canada. 



during the last war with Great Britain, 
was the first American officer who visited 
the region, and on the island in front of 
the fort, which appropriately bears his 
name, under orders from his superior, 
General Wilkinson, onjthe twenty-second 
of September, 1S05, held a council with 
the Sioux, informed them that the Span- 
iards had ceded to the United States 
the territory of Louisiana in which they 
dwelt, and that he had visited them to 
secure a piece of land where the Presi- 
dent could send officers'and soldiers who 
would protect them from the wrongs 
of traders andthe attacks of their Indian 
foes. As a result of the conference, an 
agreement was signed the next day by 
which the Sioux, for a certain sum, con- 
veyed to the United States, for the 
establishment of military posts, nine 
miles square at the mouth of St. Croix ; 
also, from below the confluence of the 
Mississippi and St. Peter's, now Minne- 
sota river, up the Mississippi, to include 
the Falls of St. Anthony, extending nine 
miles on each side of the river. 

At that time British traders in the 



•". 



2 



FORT SN ELLIN G, MINNESOTA. 



employ of the Northwest Company of 
Montreal had posts at Sandy lake, 
Leech lake and other points ; and from 
a staff at each point floated the flag of 
Great Britain. Soon after Pike's visit 
difficulties arose with Great Britain, 
and the region, although owned by the 
United States, was under the complete 
control of foreigners. 

When war was declared, the traders 
fought against the United States, and 
the Sioux chief, Petit Corbeau, whose vil- 
lage was at the great marsh, now become 
a suburb of the city of St. Paul, was 
active against the Americans, although 
his name was attached to the treaty by 
which the land upon which Fort Snelling 
is situated was granted. Joseph Renville, 
who had been Pike's interpreter, was 
also found upon the side of the enemy, 
soliciting allies for the Sioux. Captain 
T. G. Anderson, in command of British 
troops in September, 1814, in his jour- 
nal, under date of the twenty-eighth of 
September, mentioned that, at eleven 
o'clock in the morning. Petit Corbeau, 
the Sioux chief, had arrived with one 
hundred young men and given assurance 
of his fidelity to the British, and promised 
that with his warriors heVould extermi- 
nate all Indians who adhered to the 
Americans. 

Peace was declared in 1815 between 
Great Britain and the United States, and 
and in 1817 Major Stephen H. Long,* 

* Stephen Harriman Long, born at Hopkinton, 
New Hampshire, in 1784. and in i8og graduated at 
Dartmouth. For a period he was a teaciier. and in 
1814 entered the army as second lieutenant of en- 
gineers. Major in 1816, and in 1823 commanded 
an expedition to the I.al<e of the Woods, by way 
of Fort SnelHng. Brevet lieutenant-colonel. 1826, 
and major of topographical engineers, and in 1861 
the chief, with rank of colonel. In 1863 he was 
retired and d'ed at Alton, Illinois. 



topographical engineer of the army, in a 
six-oared skiff visited the site which Pike 
had obtained for military purposes. He 
arrived on the sixteenth of July, and in 
his journal, first published by the Min- 
nesota Historical society, writes of " a 
high point of land elevated about one 
hundred and twenty feet above the 
water and fronting immediately on the 
Mississippi. The point is formed by 
the bluffs of the two rivers intercepting 
each other. A military work of con- 
siderable magnitude might be con- 
structed on the point." 

Never had so much bustle been seen 
among the voyagcurs and half-breeds at 
Prairie du Chien as in the summer of 
1819, caused by the hamlet being a 
temporary resting place for an expedi- 
tion to build a military post at the site 
selected by Pike and described by 
Long. 

Major-General Jacob Brown, as early 
as the tenth of February, 1819, issued 
the following order : 

Major-General Macomb, commander of the Fifth 
Military department, will, without delay, concentrate 
at Detroit the Fifth regiment of infantry, excepting 
the recruits otherwise directed by the general order 
herewith transmitted. As soon as the navigation 
of the lakes will admit, he will cause the regiment 
to be transported to Fort Howard ; from thence by 
way of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers to Prairie du 
Chien, and after detaching a sufficient number of 
companies to (garrison Forts Crawford and Arm- 
strong, the remainder will proceed to the mouth of 
the River St. Peter's, where they will establish a post, 
at which the headquarters of the regiment will be 
located. The regiment, previous to its departure, 
will receive the necessary supplies of clothing, pro- 
visions, arms and ammunition. Immediate appli- 
cation will be made to Rrig.idier-General Jesup, 
quartermaster-general, for funds necessary to exe- 
cute the movements required by this order. 

On the thirteenth of April General 



FORT SNELLING, MINNESOTA. 



Macomb ordered Colonel Iveavenworth,* 
without delay, to prepare his regiment 
to move to the new post on the Upper 
Mississippi. 

At this period Prairie du Chien was 
only a rendezvous for traders, where 
their wives, generally Indian women or 
half-breeds, purchased after the Indian 
method, resided while they were at 
their remote posts during the winter 
months, trading for furs. There were 
forty or fifty houses scattered over the 
prairie above the junction of the Wis- 
consin and Mississippi rivers. Almost 
all were built by planting posts in the 

* Henry Leavenworth, born in 1783, in Connecticut, 
was a lawyer in early life, at Delhi, New York. In 
1813 he became a major in the army and distinguished 
himself in 1814 at the battles of Chippewa and Niag- 
ara Falls. At the latter he was severely wounded. 
In 1818 he was made lieutenant-colonel of the Fifth 
infantry, and in December, 1825, colonel of the Third 
infantry. He was the founder of Fort Leavenworth. 
On July 21, 1834, he died at Cross Timbers, in tlie 
Southwestern territory. At a meeting of the otificers 
stationed at Fort Jesup, Louisiana, on the eleventh 
day of August, 1834, resolutions were passed express- 
ive of their high esteem for the deceased, sympathy 
with the widow and orphan daughter, and a desire 
that the officers at Fort Towson would co-operate in 
removing his remains to Delhi, New York, and in 
erecting a monument. In the cemetery of this town, 
where he had, when young, been a lawyer, is a 
broken marble column ; on one side of the pedestal 
is the inscription : " In memory of Henry Leaven- 
worth, Colonel of the Third United States Infantry 
and Brigadier-General in Army." 

On the second side ; " Born at New Haven, Con- 
necticut, December 10, 1783. Died in the service of 
his country near the False Washita, July 21, 1834." 

On third side : "For his civic virtues his tellow. 
citizens of Delaware county honored him with a 
seat in the legislature of New York. The fields of 
Chippewa, Niagara, Arickaree, established his fame. " 

On fourth side : " .As a testimonial to his public 
and private worth, his regiment have erected this 
monument." 



ground with grooves, so that the sides 
tfould be filled with split timber or 
round poles and then plastered over 
with mud, whitewashed, and the roof of 
bark, or shingles split from oak logs. 

The leading trader there was a 
Scotchman named James Aird,f who for 
many years had traded with the Siou.x 
of Minnesota, while the most reckless 
was a Canadian Frenchman, Joseph 
Rolette, who was ever a law unto him- 
self. He claimed to have been as a boy 
intended for the Roman Catholic priest- 
hood, but came into the country as the 
clerk of Murdoch Cameron, a trader 
who died and was buried on the banks 
of the Minnesota river. Among the 
soldiery who attacked, in 1814, the 
American stockade at this point appear 
the names of Colin Campbell, Louis 
Provencalle, J. B. Faribault, Augustine 
Rocque, Michael Brisbois and Joseph 
Rolette. The last acted as contractor 
and sutler. Among the military orders 
which have been preserved he is cen- 
sured for selling rum to the troops — a 
business which he had learned while 
trading with the Indians. The earliest 
Anglo-American settler was Henry M. 
Fisher, with whom Lieutenant Z. M. 
Pike, in 1805, had interviews, and his 
beautiful young daughter became the 
last wife of Rolette. J 

In June, 1818, one Willard Keyes 
opened a school at Prairie du Chien, and 
had about thirty scholars, and boarded 

+ James Aird became the first agent of the Ameri- 
can Fur company, and in February, 1821, died at 
Prairie du Chien. 

X Rolette died in 1841, and his widow married a 
former clerk of her husband, Hercules L. Dousman. 



FORT SMELLING, MINNESOTA. 



with J. B. Faribault and his wife 
Pelagic, a mixed blood. 

Towards the close of June troops 
of the Fifth regiment began to arrive 
for the contemplated movement to the 
Upper Mississippi. From week to week 
boats loaded with ordnance, provisions 
and other military supplits, made their 
appearance. On the fifth of July 
Major Thomas Forsyth-'- came up from 
St. Louis in a keel-boat with goods 
valued at two thousand dollars to be 
distributed among the Sioux in accord- 
ance with the agreement made by Lieu- 
tenant Z. M. Pike fourteen years before. 

The wives of Captain Gooding and 
of Lieutenant Nathan Clarkf had 
dared the hardships of the wildernessand 
accompanied their husbands. Char- 
lotte Clark was the daughter of Thomas 
Seymour, a lawyer in Hartford, Con- 
necticut, accustomed to the best people 
and influences of that old place, and 
her grandmother was the sister of 
Colonel William Ledyard, the heroic 
commander who lost his life at Fort 
Griswold during the War of the Revo- 
lution, and to whose memory a monu- 
ment stands at New London, Connecti- 
cut. 

* Thomas Forsyth was born in 1771 at Detroit. 
His father, an Irishman, had served under Wolf at 
Quebec in 1759. As early as 1798 Thomas Forsyth 
was an Indian trader. In 1S12 he was acting Indian 
agent at Peoria. Illinois. He was for a period agent 
for the Sauks and Fo.xcs, and died October 29, 1833, 
at St Louis, Missouri. 

•f- Nathan Cl.irk, a native of Connecticut, served 
in tlie War of 1812-15. He was commissioned May, 
iBtS, second lieutenant; March, 1817. first lieuten- 
ant ; assistant commissary of subsistence, March, 
1819 ; captain in June, 1824, and died in February, 
1836, at Fort Winnebago. 



Scarcely had the troops reached the 
mouth of the Ouisconsin river, as Wis- 
consin was then written, when Mrs. 
Clark gave birth to a girl. The officers 
were attached to the gentle and refined 
wife who had maintained cheerfulness 
amid discouragements, and learning that 
the babe's first name was to be that of 
its mother, Charlotte, asked to give her 
a middle name, Ouisconsin, which was 
accepted. The babe still lives, a resi- 
dent of the city of Minneapolis, the 
honored wife of a modest soldier, a 
graduate of West Point, who com- 
manded the Second Minnesota regi- 
ment of volunteers in the successful 
charge at Mill Springs, Kentucky, dur- 
ing the War for the Union, and was 
made brigadier-general and major-gen- 
eral of volunteers — Horatio P. Van 
Cleve.| 

It was not until Sunday, the eighth 
of August, that Colonel Leavenworth 
was prepared to proceed to the mouth 
of the Minnesota, or St. Peter river, as 
it was then called. Never had so large 
a flotilla left Prairie du Chien. There 
were the colonel's barge, two large keel- 
boats loaded with military stores, and 
fourteen bateaux, and the entire force 
consisted of ninety-eight soldiers, about 
twenty men and the officers. When 

t H. P. Van Cleve, son of John Van Cleve, a 
physician, was born in 1809 at Princeton, New 
Jersey. For a time he was a student at Princeton, 
and then entered West Point in 1827 ; second 
lieutenant in Fifth infantry, 1831. Resigned in 1836 
and became a civil engineer. In 1861 was a 
resident of Minnesota and commissioned as colonel 
of Second Minnesota volunteers. In 1862 was 
brigadier-general, and wounded at battle of Stone 
river. In 1865 major-general of volunteers and is 
living, June, 1888, at Minneapolis, Minnesota. 



FORT SMELLING, MINNESOTA. 



they reached the Upper Iowa river on 
the following Tuesday, they found at 
its mouth a distinguished Sioux chief, 
who had remained faithful to the Ameri- 
cans, while other chiefs of his tribe had 
proved faithless. He had but one eye, 
and was one of the signers of the 
agreement made in 1805 for a military 
site by Lieutenant Pike. His Indian 
name was Tah-mah-hah, of Red Wing's 
band ; by the French he was called 
L'Orignal Leve, the Rising Moose. He 
was on the American gunboat Governor 
C/(7r/^f during the fight with the British. 
After the American Fort Shelby at 
Prairie du Chien had, in 1814, sur- 
rendered, he came in this boat to St. 
Louis, and was employed to ascend the 
Missouri as far as the James river, and 
then visit the Sioux and enlist them in 
favor of the United States. In time he 
again reached Prairie du Chien, and 
was arrested by Dickson, a British 
officer, and placed in confinement. He 
was at length liberated, and passed the 
winter of 1815 with his people. In 
May, 1815, the British evacuated their 
post at Prairie du Chien and fired the 
fort with an American flag flying, but 
this faithful Sioux, who happened to be 
there, rushed in and saved the colors 
from burning. He died in Minnesota 
in 1863, more than eighty years of age, 
and it was with ^ride he used to exhibit 
the following certificate,* given by 
Governor William Clarkef of Missouri, 
supeiintendent of Indian affairs : 

* The original is in the Minnesota Historical so- 
ciety rooms at the capital, St. Paul. 

f William Clarke, born in Virginia in 1770, and by 



In consideration of the fidelity, zeal and attach- 
ment testified by Tar-mah-hah of the Red Wing's 
band of Sioux to the government of the United 
States, and by virtue of the power and authority in 
me vested, do hereby confirm the said Tar-mah-hah 
as chief in said band of Sioux aforesaid, having 
bestowed on him the small-sized medal, wishing all 
and singular the Indians, inhabitants thereof, to obey 
him as a chief, and the officers and others in the 
service of the United States to treat him accord- 
ingly. 

On the twenty-first of August Colonel 
Leavenworth reached the village of the 
Little Crow at the marsh on the east 
side of the Mississippi, now a suburb 
of the city of St. Paul, who had, in 
the last war with Great Britain, been 
conspicuous in hostility toward all 
citizens of the United States. He ac- 
knowledged the cession of the land for 
a military post to Lieutenant Pike and 
received a present. On Monday, the 
twenty-third of August, all of the boats 
of the expedition reached the junction 
of the Mississippi and Minnesota 
rivers, and the next day Colonel Leaven- 
worth selected for a cantonment a 
place on the lower bank of the Min- 
nesota, not far from the railroad bridge, 
in the hamlet of Mendota. In about 
a week some officers came up in boats 
with one hundred and twenty more 
soldiers. 

On Saturday, the twenty-eighth of 
August, a party inade a visit to the 
Falls of St. Anthony in one of the 
boats. It was composed of Colonel 

his friend, President Jefferson, made second lieuten- 
ant of artillery. In 1804, with Captain Lewis, went 
on an expedition to the Pacific ocean. In 1813 ap- 
pointed governor of Missouri territory ; in 1822 
superintendent of Indian affairs. Died in 1838. 



6 



FORT SMELLING, MINNESOTA. 



Leavenworth, Major Vose,* Surgeon 
Purcell/j" Lieutenant Clark, the wife of 
Captain GoodingJ and Major Thomas 
Forsyth of the Indian department. 
The boat could only advance within 
one mile of the falls, owing to the 
rapids, and from thence they walked. 
The water being low, some of the com- 
pany walked from the west side over 
the ledge to the island dividing the 
falls, but found the water on the other 
side of the island too deep to reach 
the northeast bank of the river. Early 
in September one hundred and twenty- 
nine soldiers arrived at the cantonment. 
^Vhile huts were being erected for 
the troops, the wife of Lieutenant 
Clark, with her young infant, lived on 
a keel-boat, but in a few weeks moved 
into a log cabin daubed with clay. 
While the first winter was very severe, 
the officers were active and cheerful, 
although the troops suffered from 
scurvy. Ex-Governor H. H. Sibley, 
who came to Mendota in 1834 as agent 
for the American Fur company, nien- 

*Josiah H. Vose, born in Massachusetts, and in 
the War of 1812-15. Captain of Fifth infantry, 
1815; mnjor, December 31, 1820; lieutenant- 
colonel of the Third infantry, 1830 ; colonel of 
Fourth infantry, 1832 ; died July 15, 1845, at New 
Orleans barracks. 

\ Edward Purcell was a Virginian, and during the 
War of 1812-15 was hospital surgeon ; April, 1818. 
surgeon of the Fifth infantry, and died at Fort 
Snelling on eleventh of January, 1825. 

J George Gooding, born in Massachusetts, was, in 
1808, an ensign of Fourth infantry; wounded 
November 7, i8ir, in battle of Tippecanoe; first 
lieutenant Fifth infantry, 1815 ; captain, December, 
1820 ; retired under the law in June, 1821 ; sutler 
at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, 1821 to 1827, 
where he died. His widow married a Mr. Johnson 
and went to St. Louis. 



tions that this disease raged so violently 
that garrison duty was for a few days 
suspended, the soldiers who were well 
being required as nurses for the sick. 
Some of those who went to bed in fair 
health were found dead the next morn- 
ing, and one who was relieved from his 
turn of sentinel duty and stretched 
himself upon the bench in the guard- 
room, four hours later was discovered 
to be without life. 

Colonel Leavenworth was distressed 
by the condition of the camp, sup- 
posed to have been produced by the 
agents of contractors drawing the brine 
from the pork barrels to lighten the 
load, and refilling with fresh water. 
He sent to Prairie du Chien for vinegar 
and had the country searched for spruce 
and other antiscorbutics. 

The post school-master, during the 
first winter, was John Marsh, said to 
have been a college graduate, and who 
soon acquired the Sioux language. He 
became tired of the position of post 
school-teacher, and making the ac- 
quaintance of Lewis Cass, then gov- 
ernor of Michigan, he was first em- 
ployed by him because of his knowledge 
of Indian language, and in time was 
made a justice of the peace and sub- 
Indian agent at Prairie du Chien. 
During the Black Hawk war he acted 
as interpreter for the Sioux. 

The first sutler was named Devotion. 
He arrived toward the close of 18 19 at 
Mud Hen island, the Isle Pelee, above 
Lake Pepin, where Pierre Le Sueur, in 
1695, had erected a fort, and where J. 
B. Faribault was then trading with the 
Sioux Indians. A few miles above. 



Port smelling, Minnesota. 



where the city of Hastings is now 
built, the sutler found a keel-boat of 
military supplies in charge of Lieu- 
tenant Oliver,* which had been de- 
tained by the ice and guarded by a few 
soldiers. The clerk of the sutler was 
Philander Prescott, the son of a 
physician, born at Phelpstown, Ontario 
county, New York, and then about 
eighteen years of age. He remained 
during his life-time more or less identi- 
fied with Fort Snelling, and in 1863, at 
the time of the Sioux uprising, although 
his children had a Sioux mother, was 
scalped. 

In connection with the establishment 
of a military post, the United States 
created the first agency for the Sioux. 
In connection with the fort the govern- 
ment established the first Indian agency 
in the Valley of the Upper Mississippi. 
The first agent was Lawrence Taliaferro, 
born in 1794 in Prince William county, 
Virginia. At the declaration of war 
against Great Britain in 1812, with four 
of his brothers, he entered the army, 
and was commissioned as lieutenant of 
the Thirty-fifth United States infantry. 
At the siege of Fort Erie and at 
Sackett's Harbor he behaved well, and 
when the war ended was retained as 
first lieutenant in Third infantry. In 
1816 he was at Fort Dearborn, now in 
the centre of the city of Chicago. 
While on furlough, President Monroe, 
who was his friend, appointed him 
Indian agent. He proved one of the 
most efficient officers of the Indian de- 

* William G. Oliver of Pennsylvania served in tlie 
War of i8r2-i5. Second lieutenant in Fifth in- 
fantry in 1818, and left the army in 1821. 



partment. His commission was dated 
March 27, 1819, and he remained at 
Fort Snelling and was retained until 
1840 by successive Presidents, when, 
though appointed for the sixth term, he 
declined longer service. 

The first winter the soldiers were 
occupied in clearing the site of the pro- 
posed fortification on the upper bank 
of the Minnesota river, and in cutting 
logs in the pine forests of the Valley of 
Rum river above the Falls of St. An- 
thony, which were brought down and 
used in the erection of temporary bar- 
racks. During the first year the re- 
lations between the Indian agent and 
Colonel Leavenworth were not clearly 
defined, and there was some little fric- 
tion, as the following note from Major 
Taliaferro indicates, written in July, 
1820: 

As it is now understood that I am agent for Indian 
affairs in this country, and you are about to leave 
the Upper Mississippi, in all probability, in the course 
of a month or two, I beg leave to suggest, for the 
sake of a general understanding with the Indian 
tribes of this country, that any medals you may 
possess, by being turned over to me, ceases to be a 
topic of remark among the different Indian tribes 
under my direction. I will pass to you any voucher 
that may be required, and I beg leave to observe 
that my progress in influence is much injured in 
consequence of this frequent intercourse with the 
government. 

In May, 1820, the soldiers left the 
cantonment at Mendota, where they 
had suffered so much from scurvy, and 
crossing the Minnesota, encamped near 
a full, clear spring of water, upon the 
wide, elevated prairie, just beyond the 
site of the fort, which was designated 
as Camp Cold Water. The Indian 
agency for a time remained at the old 
cantonment. 



s 



FORT SN ELLIN G, MINNESOTA. 



There was a surprise in camp on the 
thirtieth of July, 1820, by the unex- 
pected arrival of Governor Lewis Cass 
of Michigan and party in birch bark 
canoes, having reached the Mississippi 
by way of Lake Superior and Sandy 
lake and then descended. The officers 
hunted up their uniforms and dusted 
them, in order that they might pay a 
visit of respect, and the following note 
of the adjutant of the post, which has 
been preserved, indicates the occasion : 

July 30. 1820. 
Sir : — General Cass is at this place and wishes to 
see the Indian agent. I send you a coat. 
Yours, etc., 

P. R. Green,* Adjutant. 
Mr. Taliaferro. 

An unpleasant affair occurred about 
this time, which led the agent to write on 
the third of August to Colonel Leaven- 
worth : 

His E.'fcellency Governor Cass, during his visit to 
this post, remavlced to me that the Indians in this 
quarter were spoiled, and at the same time said they 
should not be permitted to enter the camp. An 
unpleasant affair has lately taken place— 1 mean the 
stabbing of the old chief, Mahgossan, by his com- 
rade. This was caused, doubtless, by an anxiety to 
obtain the chief's whiskey. I beg, therefore, that no 
whiskey whatever be given to any Indian, unless it 
be through their proper agent. While an overplus 
of whiskey thwarts the beneficent and humane policy 
of the government, it entails misery upon the Indians 
and endangers their lives. 

During the first year of the military 
occupation, two hundred and eighty- 
three Ojibways, or Chippeways, in- 
cluding women and children, visited 
the post, and about two thousand Sioux, 
and the Indian agent distributed among 

* Piatt R. Green of Pennsylvania was second lieu- 
tenant of the Fifth infantry. May, 1815 ; first lieu- 
tenant March, 1820, and died June 30, 1828, at Jeffer- 
son barracks, Missouri. 



them one hundred and forty-one gal- 
lons of " milk," as whiskey was called. 

In August Josiah Snelling,t who had 
been recently .promoted to the colon- 
elcy of the Fifth regiment, arrived and 
relieved Leavenworth. On the tenth 
of September, under his efficient direc- 
tion, the corner-stone of the first edifice 
was laid with appropriate ceremonies. 
In digging the foundation for the cir- 
cular stone battery, which, until re- 
cently, stood in rear of the command- 
ing officer's quarters, at the foot of 
a small oak tree, a bottle was picked up 
and placed in the hands of Colonel 
Snelling, in which had been placed, in 
1805, by Lieutenant Pike, a copy in 
writing of the agreement by which the 
Sioux ceded the land to the United 
States. 

The wife of Captain Snelling accom- 
panied him, making the fourth lady in 
the garrison, and this month her fifth 
child was born, which, after living thir- 
teen months, expired. The stone which 
marks the resting-place of the remains 
of the little one may yet be seen in the 
military grave-yard. During the sum- 
mer of 1820 a party of Sisseton Sioux, 
on [the banks of the Missouri river, 
killed a Canadian, Joseph Andrews, and 
Isadore Poupon, half-breed, both in the 
employ of the American Fur company. 
As soon as Agent Taliaferro was in- 

■^ Josiah Snelling, jr., born in 1782 in Massachu- 
setts : was in 1808 first lieutenant Fourth infantry ; 
captain in June, 1809, and in 1811 at battle of Tippe- 
canoe. In battle at Brownstown in 1812, and for dis- 
tinguished service made brevet major. In May, 1815, 
he was retained as lieutenant-colonel, and on June i, 
1819, commissioned as colonel of Fifth infantry. He 
died on August 20, 1828, in Washington city. 



FORT SNELLING, MINNESOTA. 



formed, he sent a young Indian to the 
Sisseton and Wahpayton Sioux, and in- 
formed the chiefs that he wished them 
to visit him. They acceded to the re- 
quest, and a council was held on the 
twenty-ninth of September, in the pres- 
ence of Colonel Snelling. The Indians 
were informed that two of their number 
would be detained as hostages until the 
murderers were delivered, which was 
displeasing. 

Colin Campbell, the interpreter,* was 
also sent to Big Stone lake to secure the 
murderers if possible. The result of the 
visit is seen in the following interesting 
letter of Colonel Snelling to the secre- 
tary of war : 

Cantonment, St. Peter's, 1 
November 13, 1820. f 

Sir : — When I had the honor to address you on 
the tenth, for the di5po5ition then manifested by 
the Sussitongs, I had no hope of obtaining the sur- 
render of the murderers of our people on the Mts- 
souri, but, contrary to my e,\pectation, one of the 
murderers and an old chief, self-devoted, in the 
place of his son, was voluntarily brought in and 
delivered up yesterday. 

The ceremony of delivery was conducted with 
much solemnity. A procession was formed at some 
distance from the garrison, and marched to the 
centre of our parade. It was preceded by a Sus- 
sitong bearing the British flag ; the murderer and 
devoted chief followed with their arms pinioned, 
and large splinters of wood thrust through them 
above the elbows, to indicate, as I understood, their 
contempt of pain and death. 

The relations and friends followed, and on the 
w.ay, joined them in singing their death-song. 
When they arrived in front of the guard, the British 
flag was laid on a fire prepared for the occasion 
and consumed ; the murderer gave up his medal 
and both the prisoners were surrendered. 

The old chief I have detained as a hostage, the 
murderer I have sent to St. Lewis under a proper 

• Colin, Scott and Duncan Campbell, children of 
an old trader by an Indian woman, were all em- 
ployed at different times as interpreters. 



guard for trial, presuming it is a course you will ap- 
prove. 

I am much indebted to Mr. Colin Campbell, the 
interpreter, for his great exertions in bringing this 
affair to a speedy issue. The delivery of the mur- 
derer is solely to be attributed to his influence over 
the Sussitongs. 

The Indian agent contemplating a 
visit to Washington with some Sioux 
chiefs, the following letter, signed by 
the officers of the post, was drawn up 
by Colonel Snelling. It reads : 

In justice to Lawrence Taliaferro, esq., Indian 
agent at this post, we, the undersigned officers of 
the Fifth regiment, here stationed, have presented 
him this paper as a token not only of our individual 
respect and esteem, but as an entire approval of his 
conduct and deportment as a public agent m this 
quarter. 

Given at .St. Peter, this fourth day of October, 1820. 

J. Snelling. colonel Fifth infantry; N. Clark, 
lieutenant ; S. Burbank, a battalion major ; Joseph 
Hare, i5 lieutenant; David Perry ,t' captain; Ed- 
ward Purcell, surgeon ; G. Gooding, battalion cap- 
tain ; P. R. Green, lieutenant adjutant ; J. Plymp- 
ton,rf lieutenant; W. G. Camp, e lieutenant- 

a Sullivan Burbank was born in Massachusetts, 
and in 1800 was a sergeant-major ; was captain at 
Niagara Falls in July, 1814, and severely wounded. 
After the war, became major Fifth infantry ; lieu- 
tenant-colonel in 1836, and in 1839 resigned. 

/'Joseph Hare of Pennsylvania, second lieutenant 
of Fifth infantry in 1820, and under an act of con- 
gress reducing the army in June, i82r, left the service. 

c David Perry of Massachusetts was in the War of 
i8i2-r8i5. and captain of Fifth infantry in r8r5. 
In April, 1822, he resigned. 

(f Joseph Plympton was born in 1787 at Sudbury, 
Massachusetts, and served in War of i8i2-t5. He 
was first lieutenant of Fifth infantry in May, 1815 ; 
captain in June, 1821 ; major, 1840 ; commanded 
troops in fight with Seminole Indians, Florida, in 
January, 1842 ; lieutenant-colonel of Seventh in- 
fantry, 1846, and led his regiment at Cerro Gordo 
and Contreras, Mexico ; colonel, 1853, and died in 
i860 on Staten Island. 

e William G. Camp of Ohio was wounded at 
Niagara Falls in 1814, and in February, i8t8, was 
made second lieutenant of Fifth infantry, under the 
Reduction act ; left the service in June, 1821. 



10 



PORT SPELLING, MINNESOTA. 



quartermaster ; R. A. McCabe,/ lieutenant ; W. 
Wilkins,^ lieutenant. 

The daughter of Captain Clark, Mrs. 
H. P. Van Cleve, writes that in 182 1 
the fort was sulificiently finished to be 
occupied by the troops, and that her 
father's quarters were next beyond the 
steps leading to the commissary's stores, 
and that there, in that year, her sister 
Juliet was born. Afterwards Major Gar- 
land and Captain Clark were allowed 
to build two stone residences beyond 
the gates, which in later years were oc- 
cupied by the Indian agent and inter- 
preter, but now destroyed. 

Early in August a young and intelli- 
gent mixed blood, Alexis Bailly — about 
a quarter century afterwards a member 
of the first legislature of Minnesota — 
left the post with the first drove of 
cattle for Lord Selkirk's settlement. 

The next month a party of Sisseton 
Sioux came to the post, and their 
spokesman said to the agent : 

We are glad to find your door open to-day, my 
father. The Indians are Ime the wild dogs of the 
prairie. When they stop at night, they lie down in 
the open air and pursue their journey. I applied 
for the other murderer of the white men of the 
Missouri, but in bringing him down the fear of be- 
ing hung induced him to stab and kill himself. 

About the middle of October, in the 
keel-boat Saucy Jack, Colonel Snelling, 

/Robert A. McCabe of Pennsylvania was in the 
War of 1812-15, and was second lieutenant of Fifth 
infantry, May, 1815, and the next year first lieu- 
tenant. In 1824 he was captain ; resigned in 1833, 
and was appointed Indian agent and postmaster at 
Fort Winnebago. From 1836 to 1845 he was 
sutler to the troops on Mackinaw island, and 
before r84S he died. 

g Henry Wilkins of Pennsylvania left the service 
in June, 1821, under the act of congress. 



Major Taliaferro, Lieutenant Baxley* 
and the wife of Captain Gooding de- 
parted for] Prairie du Chien. Captain 
Gooding, who had been wounded at 
the battle of Tippecanoe, about this 
time became the sutler at Fort Craw- 
ford, Prairie du Chien. 

The latter part of this year, Laidlaw, 
superintendent of Lord Selkirk's farm,- 
and Colonel Robert Dickson — also 
spelled Dixon — arrived at the fort from 
the Lake Winnipeg region, on their 
way to Prairie du Chien. Dickson was 
well educated, of courtly manners and 
an agreeable companion, yet had con- 
formed to the customs and dress of the 
savages while living among them, and 
by an Indian woman had a large family 
of children. During the War of 1812- 
15 he was the British superintendent of 
Indian affairs, and led the Indian allies 
against the Americans. Dickson came 
back the next spring with a drove of 
cattle for Selkirk's settlement, but his 
cattle were scattered by the Sioux. 

On the twenty-eighth of May, 1S21, 
under the guidance of Joseph, the son 
of Colonel Snelling, the great Yankton 
chief, Wahnatah, came down from Lac- 
qui-Parle on his first visit to the garri- 
son. In a council held by the Indian 
agent on the seventh of June, Red 
Thunder, an old chief from the head- 
waters of the Minnesota river, was 
present, and supposed to be eighty 
years old. 

*Joseph M. Baxley of Maryland had been in the 
War of 1812-15, and made second lie.itenant of 
Fifth infantry in June, 1819 ; first lieutenant in 
1824; captain in March, 1833, and in April, 1836, 
he resigned. 



tfOkT SMELLING, MINNESOTA. 11 

The great Ojibway chief of the Pilla- troops at that post, which you will deduct from the 

ger band, Flat Mouth, did not pay his P''^^'™^"' '° ■""= "^'^^ f°'' """'■ ^^'^"'' ^"<^ •"''"'"'^ 

over to you for issue ; 

first visit to the agent and Colonel 

r. ,1- .-1 ^1 . ^ • ii f A One pair buhr mill-stones $25011 

bnelling until the twenty-ninth ot Au^ t-, ,.,.,. 

° •' 1 hree hundred and ei.^hty-seven pounds 

gust, and more than a hundred of his piaster of Paris 2022 

braves accompanied him. He said, " I Two dozen sickles 1800 

came down to-day and you must not Total $28833 

think hard of me that I came into your tt »i • t ^i, r t o 

•' Upon the nineteenth of January, 1824, 

house wearing a red coat. I have been hg ao-ain writes : 
a long time acquainted with the British, 

,..,., T \- • 1. i ■■. ii- The mode suggested by Colonel Snellini; of fixine 

but this day I have a wish to quit them. ., . , *^., , ' ^ „ <■ ■ , ^ , 

•' ^ the price to be paid the troops for flour furnished by 

Put something on me to make me your them, is deemed equitable and just. You will ac- 

child." He gave up two British flags, cordingly pay for the flour $3.33 per barrel. 

and received, among other presents, a Lieutenant William Ale.xander* was in 

large American flag and four gallons of 18,3 seat with fourteen soldiers to mark 

whiskey. a road to Prairie du Chien, on the west 

A mill was erected at the Falls of St. gije of the Mississippi, and blaze the 

Anthony in the autumn of 182 1, under trees. 

the supervision of Lieutenant McCabe, As Colonel Snelling, on the night of 
for sawing lumber, but in 1823 was the twentieth of September, 1822, was 
altered so as to grind flour. It stood crossing the parade from the sutler's 
where is now one of the great flour- store to his quarters, he was startled by 
mills of the city of Minneapolis. The a meteor moving from northwest to 
history of the first mill in Minnesota is southeast at an angle of about fifty de- 
worthy of preservation. General Gib- grees above the horizon. It struck the 
son, under date of August 5, 1S23, ground with a sound like a spent shell, 
wrote to Lieutenant Clark, then com- He hurried to the sentinel at the corner 
missary at the fort : of the store and found him agitated. 

From a letter addressed by Colonel Snelling to He told the Colonel that a large ball of 

the quartermaster-general, dated the second of April, firg had passed near him and disap- 

l learned that a large quantity of wheat would be j ■ ..i i ..., i j .- .i i\ r- 

. , , . T^, • , peared in the bottom-lands ol the Min- 

raiscd this summer. The assistant commissary of ^ 

subsistence at St. Louis has been instructed to for- nesota river. Other Sentinels confirmed 

ward sickles and a pair of mill-stones to St. Peter's, his description ; but the next morning 

If any flour is manufactured from the wheat raised, tj^g marshy land was examined, but 

be pleased to let me know as early as practicable, . . , . 

., . , J J . .u ,-. r . J . .1- no traces of meteoric stone were dis- 

that I may deduct the quantity manufactured at the 

post from the quantity advertised to be contracted Covered. The thermometer at nine 

for- o'clock that night was at fifty degrees ; 

In another letter he writes : 7717^7 T7, ! 7^7 , 

* William Alexander of lennessee was second 

Below you will find the amount charged on the lieutenant in October, 1820 ; first lieulenant in 1B25 ; 

books against the garrison at Fort St. Anthony for captain in February, 1836, and in October, 1838, 

certain articles, and forwarded for the use of the died at St. Louis, Missouri. 



12 



FORT SN ELLIN G, MINNESOTA. 



wind from the northwest, light and fresh, 
and the weather clear. 

As the Mohammedans begin their era 
from the hegira or flight of their prophet 
to Medina, so the traders and voyageurs 
of the Upper Mississippi computed 
from the arrival of the first steamboat 
at the fort. 

During the winter of 1S23 Major 
Taliaferro had been in Washington on 
Indian business, and on his return in 
March, while at a Pittsburgh hotel, 
received a note from G. C. Beltrarni, a 
tall, distinguished and well-educated 
Italian exile, asking permission to travel 
with him to the Indian country, which 
was granted. 

Arriving at St. Louis, they embarked 
on the steamboat Virginia, which had 
been built at Pittsburgh. The boat was 
one hundred feet long, twenty-two in 
width, drew six feet of water and was 
commanded by Captain Crawford. 

On the tenth of May, laden with 
military supplies, it reached the mouth 
of the St. Peter, now Minnesota river. 
Among the passengers were Major 
Biddle,* Lieutenant Russell, f Assistant 
Surgeon Craig. J As the boat neared 
the landing at the fort, on the tenth of 

* Major Biddle of Pennsylvania, a brave officer in 
the War of 1812-1815. Pay-master in August, 1820, 
and in 1831 fell in a duel at St. Louis, Missouri. 

+ John B. F. Russell of Massachusetts, a cadet in 
May, 1814 : second lieutenant. Fifth infantry. May, 
1821 ; first lieutenant, November, 1821 ; captain 
April, 1830; resigned in June, 1837. 

X Presley H. Craig of Pennsylvania had been a 
surgeon in War of 1812-1815 ; commissioned in May, 
1821, as assistant surgeon ; in July, 1832, surgeon ; 
medical director of General Zachary Taylor's army 
in Mexico, 1846 to 1848. 



May, the Sioux beheld it with speech- 
less wonder, supposing it was some 
enormous water-spirit coughing, puffing 
out hot breath and splashing water in 
every direction. When the plank was 
thrown ashore and it began to blow off 
steam, mothers, forgetting their children, 
with streaming hair, sought hiding- 
places, and warriors, renouncing their 
stoicism, scampered away like affrighted 
deer. On the twelfth of the month the 
Virginia began the return voyage. 

In 1823 some Sauks and Foxes had 
taken a woman of the Yankton Sioux 
prisoner, and carried her to their village 
near the Dubuque lead mines. The 
Indian agent left the fort with Alexander 
Faribault, the son of the old trader, and 
a party of Sioux braves, determined 
to rescue the captive. It was a danger- 
ous but successful trip. The woman 
was obtained and brought up to the fort 
and in time sent to her family, who 
dwelt in the Valley of the Des Moines 
river. 

After the Indian agency was estab- 
lished at the post no one could trade 
with the Indians unless licensed, and 
among the authorized traders in 1S23 
were Duncan Campbell, Ezekiel Lock- 
wood, Daniel M. Whitney, Alexander 
Faribault and Joseph Snelling. 

General Winfield Scott made a visit 
of inspection, and at his suggestion the 
name of the post, which had been Fort 
St. Anthony, was changed to Fort 
Snelling. In his report to the secretary 
of war he wrote : 

This work, of which the war department is in pos- 
session of a plan, reflects the highest credit on Col- 
onel .Snelling, his officers and men, the defenses 
and, for the most part, the public store-houses, shops 



FORT SNELLING, MINNESOTA. 



13 



and quarters being constructed of stone. The whole 
is likely to endure as long as tlie post shall remain a 
frontier one. The cost of erection to the govern- 
ment has been the amount paid for tools and iron, and 
ihepcrt/u/n paid to soldiers employed as mechanics. 

I write to suggest to the general-in-chief, and 
through him to the war department, the propriety of 
calling tliis work Fort Snelling, as a just compliment 
to the meritorious officer under whom it has been 
erected. 

The present name [Fort St. Anthony] is foreign to 
all our associations, and is, besides, geographically 
incorrect, as the work stands at the junction of the 
Mississippi and St. Peter [Minnesota] rivers, eight 
miles below the great Falls of the Mississippi, called 
after St. Anthony. 

About the year 1824 a party of dis- 
pirited colonists of Lord Selkirk's 
settlement, while on their way to Fort 
Snelling, were met and slaughtered by 
some Sioux, except two brothers, John 
and Andrew Tully, who were made 
captives. Colonel Snelling sent some 
troops and had the lads rescued. The 
wife of the colonel took charge of John, 
who died at the fort, and the wife of 
Captain Clark looked after Andrew. 
The latter in time became an inmate of 
the Orphan asylum of New York city 
and in manhood a respectable citizen 
of Brooklyn. 

During the last months of 1825, in 
consequence of the absence of Colonel 
Snelling on furlough, Lieutenant-Col- 
onel Willoughby Morgan, a a native of 
Virginia, was in command, who re- 
stored the strict military discipline 
which had been abated in consequence 
of so many of the soldiers acting as 
artificers in the erection of the build- 

II WiUoughby Morgan of Virginia, in the War of 
1812-15, and in October, 1821, lieutenant-colonel of 
the Fifth infantry; colonel of First infantry in April, 
1830, and died April 23, 1832, at Fort Crawford, 
Prairie du Chien. 



ings of the fort. The officers of the 
post on the first of January, 1826, were 
Major T. Hamilton, 1^ Captain J. Plymp- 
ton, Captain Wilcox, r Captain N. Clark, 
Lieutenant J. B. Russell, Adjutant P. R. 
Green, Lieutenant A. Johnston, (/Surgeon 
B. F. Harney, t.' Assistant Surgeon R. 
Wood,/" Lieutenant J. M. Baxley, Lieu- 
tenant D. Hunter,^ Lieutenant St. Clair 
Denny,// Lieutenant W. Alexander, 
Lieutenant D. W. AUanson./ 

^Thomas Hamilton had been a sergeant, and in 

1806 was ensign of First infantry ; second lieutenant, 

1807 ; first lieutenant, 1808. Defended Fort Madi- 
son, Illinois, in September, 1812, for four days 
against the Indians. Captain in Fifth infantry in 
1823, and in 1824 resigned. 

i: De Lafayette Wilcox rose from the ranks. En- 
sign in 1813, second lieutenant in 1814, and wounded 
at siege of Fort Erie. Captain in Fifth infantry, 
April, 1822; died January, 1842, at Pilatka, Florida, 

(/.Alexander Johnston of Pennsylvania, cadet, 1820: 
second lieutenant. Fifth infantry, June, 1824 ; first 
lieutenant, 1828 ; captain, 1836 ; died in 1845 at 
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

^Surgeon Benjamin F. Harney served in the War 
of 1812-15, and in 1847 was wounded in Mexico while 
attached to the command of Colonel J. S. Mcintosh. 

/Roger C. Wood of Rhode Island was appointed 
assistant surgeon in May, 1825 ; surgeon in July, 
1836. In 1829 he married, at Prairie du Chien, a 
daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterwards 
President of the United States. During the war to 
preserve the Union he was the assistant surgeon- 
general of the United States. 

f David Hunter was born in 1803 in the District 
of Columbia ; cadet in 1818 ; second lieutenant. 
Fifth infantry, 1822 ; first lieutenant, 1828 ; captain 
First dragoons, Marqh, 1833. Resigned in July, 
1836. Pay-master in 1842. At Bull Run battle, 
July, 1861, commanded a division of troops. In 
1866 retired, and in 1887 died in Washington, Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

/i St. Clair Denny of Pennsylvania was a cadet in 
i8i8 ; second lieutenant. Fifth infantry, 1822 ; first 
lieutenant, 1827 ; captain in 1830, and resigned in 
1839. In 1841 he was made pay-master. 

/ Dudley W. AUanson, a cadet in i8i8 ; second 
lieutenant. Fifth infantry. May, 1824, and in Sep- 
tember, 1827, resigned. 



u 



FORT SNELLING, MINNESOTA. 



The third steamboat that ever brought 
supplies to the west arrived on the 
second of April, 1S25 ; was the Riifus 
Putnam, in charge of Captain Bates. 
Four weeks later she arrived again with 
goods for the Columbia Fur compan}'. 

The mail in winter was usually carried 
by soldiers to Prairie du Chien. On 
the twenty-sixth of January, 1826, there 
was a pleasant excitement caused by 
the return from furlough of Lieutenants 
Baxley and Russell, bringing the first 
mail received in five months. 

The months of February and March^ 
1826, were very severe. Snow fell to 
the depth of two or three feet, and 
there was great suffering among the 
Indians. Thirty lodges of Sisseton 
Sioux were overtaken by a blinding 
storm, which continued for a day or 
two, and as the party grew weak for 
the want of food, the stronger men on 
snow-shoes walked a hundred miles to 
the nearest trading-post, which, when 
almost dead, they reached. Four 
Canadians were sent with supplies, and 
upon reaching the encampment were 
horrified at finding the survivors eating 
the corpses of their relatives. 

Surgeon Edward Purcell died on the 
eleventh of January, 1825, the first 
officer who had expired at thfe post. 
The little son of Adjutant Green, Me- 
lancthon Snelling, had been a great fa- 
vorite in the garrison, and on Thursday, 
the twenty-third of March, 1826, he was 
buried with impressive ceremonies. The 
entire garrison attended his funeral, and 
bore his remains to the grave, preceded 
by the band playing the " Dead March." 

A Pandora box was opened in 1826 



and dissensions prevailed. One young 
officer, a graduate of West Point, fought 
a duel with and slightly wounded the 
colonel's son Joseph. At the trial of 
the lieutenant for violating the articles 
of war, he objected to the testimony of 
Lieutenant Alexander, a native of Ten- 
nessee, on the ground that he was an 
infidel. Alexander was incensed, chal- 
lenged Lieutenant Hunter, and on the 
sixth of February they fought a duel, 
resulting only in slight injuries to their 
clothing. Two days after there was a 
court-martial for the trial of Lieuten- 
ant Andrews.-'- It is said that Hunter 
also challenged the commanding officer. 
Inspector-General Gaines after this 
visited the post, and in his report wrote : 

h. defect in the discipline of this regiirent has 
appeared in the char.icter of certain personal con- 
troversies between the colonel and several of his 
young officers, the particulars of which I forbear to 
enter into, assured as I am that they will be devel- 
oped in the proceedings of a general court-mariiai 
ordered for the trial of Lieutenant Hunter and 
other officers at Jefferson barracks. From a con- 
versation with the colonel, I can have no doubt that 
he has erred in the course pursued by him in refer- 
ence to some of the controversies, inasmuch as he 
has intimated to his officers his willingness to sanc_ 
tion in certain cases, and even to participate in 
personal conflicts, contrary to the Twenty-fifth artic'e 
of war. 

The spring of 1826 was very cold, and 
on the twentieth of March snow fell to 
the depth of eighteen inches. On the 
fifth of April there was another snow- 
storm, and as late as the tenth the ther- 
mometer was four degrees below zero. 
The ice began to move on the twenty- 

* Phineas Andrew^s was a good soldier in the War 
of 1812-1815 ; a native of Connecticut ; second lieu- 
tenant Fifth infantry in October, 1820. and in Oc- 
tober, 1826, died. 



FORT SMELLING, MINNESOTA. 



15 



first, and the river after this for several spending a pleasant evening at the 

days was twenty feet above low water quarters of Captain Clark, which was 

mark. one of the stone houses which used to 

On the second of May, to the joy of stand a little distance beyond the walls 

everyone in the fort, the steamboat Si. of the fort. As Captain Cruger was 

Lawrence, Captain Reeder, arrived, and walking on the porch he was startled by 

he invited the officers and their families the whizzing of a bullet, and then rapid 

to make a trip toward the Falls of St- firing. 

Anthony. While on board they en- Notwithstanding the friendly profes- 
joyed music and dancing, but when sions, the Sioux, upon leaving the Ojib- 
within three and a half miles of the way tents, had fired upon their enter- 
falls, the current was so strong and the tainers, and ran off, wlioopino- like 
channel so filled with rocks that the demons. The terrified Ojibways ran to 
boat turned round and came back to the gates of the fort. Four of their 
the post. number had been killed and six 

In the autumn of 1826 a small party wounded, one of whom was a little 
of Ojib.ways ( Chippeways ), while on daughter of Flat Mouth, seven years of 
a visit to the Indian agent, ventured to age, shot through both thighs. Surgeon 
the trading-post of the Columbia Fur McMahon made every effort to save 
company, on the bank of the Minnesota her life, but without avail. Early the 
river, about two miles distant. They ne.xt morning Captain Clark, with a de- 
discovered that the Sioux were not tachnient of soldiers, proceeded to 
friendly and asked two white men to go arrest the murderers. Upon the prairie 
back with them to the fort. As they not far distant, thirty-two Sioux were 
passed a copse three Sioux jumped up captured and brought to the fort, 
and discharged their guns, killing one Colonel Snelling ordered the prisoners 
of the Ojibways. On the twenty-eighth to be brought before the Ojibways, and 
of May, 1827, the Ojibway chief at two were recognized as among the 
Sandy lake, Kee-wee-zais-hish, called assailants of the last night, and de- 
by the English Flat Mouth, with seven livered to the Ojibways to be dealt with 
warriors and a number of women and according to their usages. The cap- 
children, arrived about sunrise at Fort tives were led out on the prairie in front 
Snelling, and asked protection. They of the gate of the fort, and were told to 
were told that as long as they remained run for their lives, and as they ran the 
under the United States flag they were Ojibways fired and they fell lifeless. 
secure, and they pitched their tents near Then the hideousness of the savage was 
the high stone walls of the fort. manifested. Women and children leaped 

During the afternoon they were visited for joy, and placing their fingers in the 

by some Sioux from a neighboring vil- bullet holes of their dead foes, licked 

lage, who were cordially received and them with delight. The men wrenched 

feasted. That night some officers were the scalps from the bodies and muti- 



16 



FORT SN ELLIN G, MINNESOTA. 



lated them in a horrible manner. The 
same day a deputation of Sioux visited 
Colonel Snelling, regretting the violence 
done by their young men, and express- 
ing their desire to deliver up the ring- 
leaders. 

At the appointed time a son of Flat 
Mouth, at the head of the visiting Ojib- 
ways, escorted by soldiers of the Fifth 
infantry, marched out to meet the Sioux 
deputation, who, with much solemnity, 
delivered two more of the assailants. 
One was fearless, and with firmness 
stripped himself of his clothing and 
trinkets, and distributed them. The 
other was downcast and begged for life. 
They were received by the Ojibways 
and also allowed to run for life, and as 
they ran were pierced with bullets and 
soon were lifeless. Their bodies were 
then dragged to and thrown over the 
high bluffs into the Mississippi river. 

In October, 1826, the secretary of 
war ordered all the troops at Fort Craw, 
ford,* Prairie du Chien, to Fort Snell- 
ing, and two Winnebagoes held as 
hostages for the delivery of the mur- 
derers of Methode, a voyagciir, who had 
been killed at the mouth of Yellow river, 
a short distance above Prairie du Chien. 
After the execution of the Sioux at 
Fort Snelling in May, 1827, some re- 
vengeful members of the tribe went to 
the Winnebago village, where is now 
the city of La Crosse, and to gain their 
sympathy falsely said that the members 
of their tribe kept as hostages had been 
put to death. On the twelfth of June, 
1827, two keel-boats, the General Ashley 
and O. H. Perry, under the direction of 

•John Marsh was left in charge of the fort. 



Allen F. Lindsey, a brave Kentuckian, 
left Prairie du Chien with military 
supplies for Fort Snelling. There were 
on the boats, constructed like modern 
canal-boats, thirty-two men, including 
Joseph, the son of Colonel Snelling, but 
only three guns. They passed the Win- 
nebago village at La Crosse, and some 
Indians came in their canoes and sold 
fish and venison to the crew, but showed 
no ill-feeling. From thence they sailed 
for the prairie on the other side of the 
river, a few miles beyond where resided 
Wapashah's band of Sioux, now the 
site of the city of Winona. When they 
arrived there was a lull of the wind, and 
the Sioux ordered them to stop. Soon 
both boats swarmed with warriors with 
streaked blankets and faces painted 
black. They refused to shake hands 
and were sullen in their bearing. Lind. 
sey, advised by Snelling, saw the im- 
portance of pushing into the stream, 
and with a firm voice told the savages 
they must leave the boat. Intimidated 
by his bold demeanor, they departed. 

At other points, as they ascended, the 
Sioux showed ill-will. Colonel Snelling, 
anticipating danger when the boats were 
ready to return, allowed his son to be a 
passenger, and each one of the crew 
was furnished with a musket and a keg 
of ball cartridges placed at their dis- 
posal. 

Fifteen days after Lindsey left Prairie 
du Chien, a man named Gagnier, whose 
father was a Frenchman and mother a 
Negress, who lived on a farm about 
three miles from the hamlet, was shot 
by Red Bird, a Winnebago chief, and 
three companions, and fled to an en- 



FORT SNELLING, MINNESOTA. 



17 



campment of their tribe near the Bad 
Axe river. 

In descending the river Lindsey and 
his boats passed Wapashah's village 
without difficulty, and during the night 
of the twenty-ninth of June the Perry, 
in charge of Benjamin Thaw, gained on 
the Ashley, and the next day was sev- 
eral hours in advance. 

As they approached the Bad Axe 
river, sixteen men were on deck. It 
was about four o'clock in the afternoon, 
and when about thirty yards from the 
shore, they were startled by the war- 
whoop and the whizzing of rifle-balls, 
and one of the crew was killed, a Negro 
boy named Peter. A second volley 
soon came and all escaped but one. 
An American named Stewart had risen 
from a reclining position and pushed 
his musket through a loop-hole, which 
a Winnebago sharp-shooter seeing, fired 
and shot him through the heart. 

The Indians now appeared in canoes 
and attempted to board ; two were 
killed and the rest went back to the 
shore. At length two, in the same 
canoe, reached, unseen, the rear of the 
boat and leaped on deck. One seized 
the long steering oar and the other 
fired through the deck and severely 
wounded one of the crew. With the 
aid of the steering oar they then ran 
the boat on a sand bar. Through an 
opening in the boards of the boat one 
of the boatmen fired and killed one of 
the assailants. The other held his 
position and kept on firing, and at 
length killed Beauchamp, a brave 
Canadian half-breed. One of the crew, 
Jack Mandeville, then took aim and 



shot the slayer of the Canadian through 
the head, who fell dead into the river 
holding his gun. 

Mandeville now rallied the panic- 
stricken crew and soon the Winne- 
bagoes renewed the attack, and the 
fight lasted for three hours. As soon 
as it was fairly dark Mandeville jumped 
into the water, and, followed by four 
others, amid a shower of bullets, pushed 
the boat from the sand bar and pro- 
ceeded on the journey. Lindsey, in the 
Ashley, passed the scene of conflict 
about midnight, received only one 
volley and sufi'ered no loss. During the 
engagement the O. H. Perry received 
six hundred and ninety-three balls. 
Seven Indians were killed and fourteen 
wounded. Four of the crew were mor- 
tally and two slightly wounded.* 

When the boats reached Prairie du 
Chien the next day, and the inhabit- 
ants heard the startling intelligence, 
they left their houses and farms and 
fled to the then abandoned Fort Craw- 
ford. The men were organized with 
Thomas McNair as captain and Joseph 
Brisbois as lieutenant. The fort was 
repaired and Joseph Snelling placed in 
command of one of the block-houses. 
Duncan Graham, the well-known trader^ 
accompanied by an old voyageur,, 
crossed the river and hastened to Fort 
Snelling for aid, and on the ninth of 
July arrived. 

A few days after this, Governor Cass 

* For the dates and facts as to the attack on keel- 
boats, I have chiefly depended upon a narrative in 
the Missouri Republican of August 23, 1827, at- 
tested by Joseph Snelling. Allen F. Lindsey and 
Benjamin Thaw, captain of 0. H. Perry. 



18 



FORT SNELLING, MINNESOTA. 



arrived and authorized the militia to be 
mustered into the service of the United 
States, and procured subsistence. He 
then went to Galena and raised another 
volunteer company. Colonel Snelling, 
about the same time, started with four 
companies in keel-boats, and on the 
seventeenth of July more soldiers from 
Fort Snelling came, under Major Fowle. 
Snelling assumed command, and soon 
discharged the Galena volunteers. 
While at Prairie du Chien, Lieutenant 
Smith of the Galena company had a 
difficulty with Colonel Snelling, and 
challenged him to fight a duel. Colonel 
Snelling declined, and ordered the 
arrest of the bearer of the note. He 
was brought before 'the colonel by 
Smith's associate officer, Lieutenant Wil- 
liam S. Hamilton,* and when he assured 
the colonel that he did not know the 
contents of the note, he was discharged, 
and the volunteers returned to Galena 
heaping maledictions upon Colonel 
Snelling. The following extracts of a 
letter of Snelling, dated August 26, to 
Agent Taliaferro, then on a visit to the 
Sioux of the Upper Minnesota river, 
gives some idea of affairs at that 
period : 

Colonel Croghan has been here and departed very 
well salisfied. Mr. Marsh accompanied him and 
left a letter for you, which I now send. It seems 
that Mr. Secretary Barbour took no other notice of 
your letter than to send it to Governor Cass, and he 
gave it to Marsh and "so we go." 

I have no serious apprehensions for the safety of 
Fort Crawford, but the reports afloat were of such 

*VV. S. Hamilton, son of Major-General .-Mex- 
ander Hamilton, first secretary of the United -States 
treasury, had been a cadet from 1814 to 18 17 ; 
colonel of volunteers in Bl.^ck Hawk war, 1832, and 
died in August, 1850, at .Sacramento, California. 



an imposing character that I thought it my duty to 
re-inforce it. If it had fallen for want of aid, I 
should have lost my military reputation forever. I 
trust that you will agree with me that Captain Wil- 
cox was a good selection for the command. 
Wabasha is said to have agreed to join the confed- 
eracy if the Sioux of the St. Peter's would do it, 
and they have declined. 

We have no mail nor news. My family is about 
as usual. Joseph's wound is doing well. Madame 
desires to be sincerely and cordially remembered to 
you. Captain Garland is here with a very interest- 
ing family. Remember me to Lieutenant Jamieson. 

Colonel Croghan, inspector-general, 
after his visit to the fort in August, 
1S27, reported to the secretary of war : 

The main points of defense against an enemy 
appear in some respects to have been sacrificed in 
the effort to secure the comfort and convenience of 
troops in peace. . . The buildings are too large, 
too numerous, and extending over a space entirely 
too great, enclosing a large parade five times greater 
than is at all desirable in that climate. The build- 
ings for the most part seem well constructed, of 
good stone and other materials, and they contain 
every desirable convenience, comfort and security 
as barracks and store-houses. . . Much credit is 
due to Colonel Snelling, his officers and men for 
their excellent workmanship exhibited in the con- 
struction of these barracks and store-houses, but 
this has been effected too much at the expense of 
the discipline of the regiment. 

During the autumn the Fifth regi- 
ment was relieved by a portion of the 
First. The next year, on the twentieth 
of August, 1828, Colonel Snelling died in 
Washington. Major-General Macomb, 
in an order announcing his death, 
wrote : 

Colonel Snelhng joined the army in early youth. 
In the battle of Tippecanoe he svas distinguished 
for gallantry and good conduct. Subsequently, 
and during the whole late war with Great Britain, 
from the battle of Brownstown to the termination 
of the contest, he was actively employed in the field 
with credit to himself and lionor to his country. 

Four of Colonel Snelling's sons at- 
tained to manhood. William Joseph, 



FORT SNELLING, MINNESOTA. 



19 



usually called Joseph, after spending 
three years at West Point, became an 
Indian trader in Minnesota, and in this 
article there have been allusions to 
him. He possessed more than ordinary 
poetic talent. Near the headwaters of 
the Minnesota river there are several 
small lakes, and in this vicinity, the 
legend of the Sioux declares, was the 
birth-place of one of their great divin- 
ities, Wah-keen-yan — Thunder Bird. 
Upon this incident he composed a long 
poem, which has deservedly found a 
place in Griswold's ' American Poets.' 
After his father left Fort Snelling, he 
returned to Boston, and in 183 1 pub- 
lished a sharp criticism called 'A Brief 
and Impartial History of the Life and 
Actions of Andrew Jackson, President 
of the United States. By a Free Man.' 
A work of great literary ability, 
' Tales of the Northwest,' was also pub- 
lished. A caustic satire from his pen 
was issued, called ' Truth, a Gift for 
Scribblers,' in which he alluded to N. P. 
Willis, who,wincing, wrote this lampoon: 

" Oh, Smelling Joseph I Thou art like a cur ; 
I'm told thou once did live by hunting fur ; 
Of bigger dogs thou smellest, and, in sooth, 
Of one extreme perhaps can tell the truth. 
'Tis a wise shift and shows thou know'st thy powers, 
To leave the Noithwest tales and take to smelling 
ours." 

In 1832 a second edition of 'Truth ' 
appeared with the following pasquinade: 

" I live by hunting fur thou say'st, so let it be ; 
But tell me. Natty ! had I hunted thee, 
Had not my time been thrown away, young sir. 
And eke my powder ? Puppies have no fur. 

' ' Our tails ? Thou ownest thee to a tail, 
I've scanned thee o'er and o'er. 

But, though I guessed the species right, 
I was not sure before. 

*' Our savages, authentic travelers say, 
To natural fools religious homage pay, 
Hud'st thou been born in wigwam's smoke, and 

died in, 
Nat ! thine aputhesis had been certain. 



In 1834 Snelling was editor of the 
New England Galaxy. Of a convivial 
nature, he was his own worst enemy, 
and died in 1848, while editor of the 
Boston Herald. H. H. Snelling was en- 
gaged in business pursuits, in 1858, in 
New York city. James G. S. Snelling 
was born at Fort Snelling, and in 1841 
entered West Point. In July, 1845, he 
was assigned as second lieutenant of 
the Eighth infantry. He received a 
brevet for gallant conduct in the battles 
of Contreras and Churubusco, and was 
severely wounded in September, 1847, 
at Molino del Rey. A fourth son was a 
physician, and died at Peoria, Illinois, 
a few years ago. 

From the Wheeling (Virginia) Gazette, 
copied into TJie Pittsburgh Gazette of 
July 27, 1S27 : 

Indian Hostilities.— About the first of this 
month, as the'keel-boat O. H. Perry, owned by Mr. 
Robert P. Clarke of this place, was returning from 
Fort Snelling, whither she had been conveying mili- 
tary stores, the crew were twice attacked by a party 
of VVinnebngo Indians. At the second attack the 
Indians got possession of the boat, but the crew 
afterwards re-captured her. 

In these several engagements a number were killed 
on both sides. 

The clerk of the steamboat Mexico, Benjamin 
Thaw, formerly of Pittsburgh, who was in charge of 
the keel-boat O. H. Perry zX the time of the attack, 
after killing three Indians, was severely wounded. 
He is now at Hevre river under the care of physicians. * 

The men working the lead mines in the vicinity of 
Hevre river have collected at Galena and are erecting 
fortifications. 

The foregoing particulars were communicated by 
Governor Cass, at St. Louis, to a gentleman who 
passed through this place on Wednesday last. 

*Mr. Thaw survived his wound, and after a con- 
tinued active life as steamboat officer on the Ohio 
and Mississippi rivers, he died in Louisville, in 1843, 
in the thirty-seventh year of his age. He was elder 
brother of Mr. William Thaw of Pittsburgh. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 495 898 6 ^ 



